Interview with Pavo Kohler (ERNI APAC)
Investing in people is more than a strategy; it’s a commitment to growth and innovation. Success depends on the expertise, adaptability and motivation of employees. By focusing on technical upskilling, leadership development, mental health and clear career paths, organisations foster individual growth and build thriving, sustainable cultures. Pavo Kohler, Managing Director of ERNI APAC, explains more in this interview.
Why is it important for companies to invest in their people and how does this contribute to organisational growth?
For a tech consulting company like ERNI, our employees are our most important asset as we don’t sell any products or goods. The know-how of our people is very important and therefore we invest in keeping them up to date, or as I say, always 5 minutes ahead of the market. That’s why clients work with us.
In a company like ERNI, employees can learn a lot for their career – they increase their skills, grow their know-how and they get insights into a lot of different areas of industry by working with several clients. So at the end, it’s also an increase of the market value of the employee.
What would you say are the main elements of investing in employees?
It’s a mix of tech and social skills. Many developers have an intrinsic motivation to be up to date in tech skills, solving new problems. As a company, we focus a lot on the social skills.
In technology projects, communication skills are essential. How do you handle stakeholders? How do you speak up in situations where there is pressure? How do you, for example, address priorities so that small problems can be solved and don’t become big problems?
And at the same time, we address topics like mental health, by proactively organising Brownbag sessions about how to deal with mental problems. Or just small activities like a quick 15-minute free head massage for employees in our office. We also do sports activities together, like recently renting a football pitch after hours and having a short session there together; this is just to find the balance between work and leisure.
How can a company create a supportive culture? How do you foster a positive work environment?
It’s important to train our leaders well. As a good leader, it’s important to ask the right questions, to have empathy for the employees and at the same time make sure the goals are achieved.
As an organisation, we have tools to address feedback or areas for improvement. In addition, I use our town hall meetings to address topics and give our employees the possibility to ask questions.
For me, it’s also important to give clarity to questions like: How is the company doing? What does the pipeline look like when it comes to projects? How is the economy doing?
When we talk about employee retention and recruitment, how can investing in people help with this?
During recruitment, we share with candidates the success stories of our long-term employees who have been with us for many years as well as the reasons why they stay with us. Recently, we promoted around 20 people, and I asked all of them what makes them stay with ERNI. Fifteen mentioned our culture. A culture cannot be bought.
One thing our people here like is the possibility to travel to Europe, either for projects or for their 5-year jubilee. This is the time where all ERNI employees who have been with the company for 5 years will meet. It will happen again in March, this time in Barcelona, Spain.
What career progression opportunities can companies provide to enhance engagement and how does clear career advancement impact overall productivity and loyalty?
At the beginning, when people join us, we show them our ERNI career map so that they see how they can make their way within the organisation. On their way, they receive trainings and we create a personal development plan with them, to find out if they want to develop more on a technical path – to become a principal in AI or an expert in cybersecurity – or on the other path – to become a people leader, more of a generalist and leading a team.
While not everyone wants to lead employees, at the same time, there are technical guys who are good at leading teams but maybe are at the beginning of their career; they don’t know how. So it’s our job to find those hidden talents. And after some years, it is nice to see a person who started as a junior or professional ending up leading a team of 20 employees. It makes me proud seeing these homegrown talents making big steps in their career.
How does feedback play a role in shaping and developing these initiatives?
We always have a certain perception of ourselves, but another party may perceive you in a different way, which very often indicates blind spots that we need to address. Once you know your blind spots, you can also take steps to correct them. When I talk to our clients, I always ask them for feedback about our employees and teams because that’s what counts in the end as a tech consulting company.
Client feedback is the most honest form. It should then be followed up by addressing not only the good points but also the improvement areas directly with the employee. One nice piece of feedback I recently got was from a client who said: “Your dev is doing a great job in this project. We need to have him times ten – please clone him.” So I spoke about this with our developer, and it was such nice feedback for him. I saw in his reaction that it made him very proud.